10 Riders to Watch in 2012

Feb 15, 2012

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A New Face: Jens Debusschere

Age: 23. Team: Lotto-Belisol. Debusschere is in his second full season on the WorldTour. In his rookie year he raced a long season, starting with the Palma Mallorca in early February and finishing at the Jayco Herald SunTour in mid-October. Those miles could pay off this year. As an espoir, he showed his talent for the Classics with a second place in the Under-23 version of Paris-Roubaix. With Philippe Gilbert departed for BMC and Jürgen Roelandts still fighting neurological effects of a serious crash at the Tour Down Under, Lotto is short on Classics riders; Debusschere may get his chance to shine sooner than later.

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The Omega Pharma–Quick-Step Classics Kids

Guillaume van Keirsbulck (22); Michal Kwiatkowski (22).

RadioShack isn’t known as a strong Classics team, preferring to concentrate more on its stage-race prowess. But in his first WorldTour season, 2011, Kwiatkowski turned some heads with podium finishes at the Three Days of West Flanders and the Three Days of De Panne. De Panne in particular is an edgy, nervous race marked by crashes and crosswinds. It takes a strong, savvy rider to do well there, and Kwiatkowski was top 10 in all three stages.

Similarly, van Keirsbulck showed promise with a 12th at West Flanders riding ostensibly in support of his team. Omega Pharma–Quick-Step is a stacked squad for 2012, and most of its Classics efforts will be focused around Tom Boonen and Sylvain Chavanel. But look for the youthful tandem of Kwiatkowski and van Keirsbulck on the front. Should the team need a plan B, they’re ready to step up.

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Amir Zargari

Age: 22. Team: Ag2r-La Mondiale. I’ll be perfectly honest: I don’t expect Zargari to light up leaderboards this year. But he merits watching because he’s a poster child for the UCI’s globalization push. Zargari, an Iranian, was third in the UCI Asia Tour in 2011. Iran has been a curious powerhouse in cycling, led by the top Tabriz Petrochemical team and Mehdi Sohrabi (who signed with Lotto after three years with Tabriz).

What’s behind the sudden influx of Iranian riders to the WorldTour? One theory is a relaxation in government control that finally allowed riders such as Sohrabi and Zargari to sign contracts outside Iran. Another is that the UCI’s formula for awarding ProTeam licenses made top points-getters on Continental Tours valuable; it’s no accident that Ag2r, on the ProTeam bubble, signed three top Asian Tour riders this year. The reason to watch Zargari isn’t to see what he might win (although that would be great) but to see if Ag2r intends to race him much. Another Asian tour signee, Russian rider Boris Shpilevskiy, has raced extensively so far this season. Shpilevskiy is a sprinter; Zargari a climber–stage racer, but still, Amir has yet to pin on a race number for Ag2r and does not appear in any rosters for upcoming races, including the Volta Algarve and Tour du Haut Var.

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Matthew Busche

Age: 26. Team: RadioShack-Nissan-Trek. It’s tough to call Busche a new face. He’ll be 27 in May, is in his third full pro season, and is, well, the reigning U.S. national road champion. But for all that he still flies a little under the radar. A collegiate runner, he switched to bikes in 2008 and within a year had risen from amateur to domestic professional and then got a contract for 2009 with RadioShack.

An all-rounder, Busche has so far had a support role, but it’s been impressive. Tour of California winner Chris Horner singled out Busche for praise for his incredible work for the team there, and promised that he'd be one to watch (a promise delivered the next week when Busche beat George Hincapie for the national title). The risk for Busche is that he’s on a superteam stacked with talent. Behind the Schlecks, Cancellara, Horner, and other riders with GC aspirations such as Jakob Fuglsang, Tiago Machado, and Andreas Kloden, it may be tough to find leadership opportunities. But here’s hoping he gets at least one shot as team leader this year.

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On the Comeback: Romain Sicard

Age: 24. Team: Euskaltel-Euskadi. Talk about your rough seasons. Sicard, the 2009 U23 world champion, had a promising 2010 season before things went off the rails in 2011. A stubborn knee injury effectively cost him his season (he didn’t race for almost five months and did poorly in the events he did enter). Then, in November, he was arrested for a DUI in an incident where he also stole a traffic cone. But Sicard apologized for his behavior, and claims that rest, physical therapy, and changes to his bike fit have put him on the comeback trail.

So far he’s raced lightly but has shown no signs of problems. And Euskaltel will need him; faced with budgetary shortfalls from sponsors and possessed of few stars outside of Samuel Sanchez and Igor Anton, the team could lose its status as one of the longest-running teams at the top level. Look for him in such stage races as Paris-Nice and the Criterium du Dauphine.

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On the Comeback: Heinrich Haussler

Age: 27. Team: Garmin-Barracuda. There are long roads back, and then there’s Heinrich Haussler’s. In 2009 he blew up the world with second places at Milan–San Remo and the Tour of Flanders, to go with a bushel basket of wins. His 2010 wasn’t quite as successful as injuries kept him from going full speed much of the season. For last year, he was back to fighting form with two wins at the Tour of Qatar and some promising Paris-Nice results, including the points title. But he fell short of his objectives—18th at San Remo, a DNF at Paris-Roubaix and in the shadows of leader Thor Hushovd and Roubaix winner Johan van Summeren.

Was it disappointing? Not to manager Jonathan Vaughters, who said that Haussler’s primary issue was simply that he’d been away from racing too much in 2010; he needed miles. He got them in 2011 and finished strong with a stage win at the Tour of Beijing. With a full, injury-free season under his belt, the Haussler of 2012 might resemble the 2009 vintage.

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On the Comeback: Matthew Lloyd

Age: 28. Team: Lampre-ISD. Long considered one of the most talented support climbers in cycling, Lloyd had one of the more bizarre seasons in memory in 2011. After breaking his shoulder in the 2010–2011 off-season, he was hit by a car around Valentine’s Day and raced sparingly before his Omega Pharma–Lotto team released him in mid-April, citing “behavioral reasons.” The team was quick to clarify that Lloyd was under no suspicion of doping but had broken his contract by refusing to race. (Lloyd says he told team management his injuries weren’t recovered from and his form didn’t merit racing, a request they ignored.)

Lloyd’s response alluded to some personal issues. “I’ve been bleeding in places you can’t see, and feeling the effects of doors being locked,” he wrote on his web site. “I’ve called the people who change the locks and the gate is open.” With the support of the Australian Institute for Sport, Lloyd returned to training and raced the Sun Tour last fall. His new team, Lampre-ISD, will almost certainly pick him for the Giro d’Italia where, with former winners Damiano Cunego and Stefano Garzelli, Lloyd could be a favorite for a stage win.

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On the Comeback: Matti Breschel

Age: 27. Team: Rabobank. Even when he was going fast, Matti Breschel couldn’t catch a break. Going into the 2010 Classics season, Breschel was flying. He won the Across Flanders semi-classic and had superb form. At the Tour of Flanders it was Breschel’s acceleration on the Paterberg that whittled the favorites group to just nine riders. Then disaster struck with a bad bike change. Chasing, Breschel would never see the front of the race again and rolled home in the first chasing bunch, a disappointed 15th.

In the off-season he switched to Rabobank, where he’d have a free hand as leader in the classics, but a knee injury cost him his entire spring campaign and nagged at him for much of the rest of the season. Currently, he’s injury-free. But aside from a lack of miles, what may be his biggest problem is simply his eagerness. Breschel has so much pent-up energy to destroy the field this spring that he’ll either blow up the race or himself. Hopefully it’s the former.

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Lost in Traffic: Konstantin Sivtsov

Age: 29. Team: Sky. When you have a top-10 finish in a grand tour and are accounted one of the best climbers in the sport, you should get chances, right? Maybe not. The demise of HTC-Highroad put a lot of talent into the market and it was a buyer’s extravaganza. The good side for Sivtsov? He ended up at Sky, with top-class support. The bad? He ended up at Sky, which is stacked with talent.

Among the riders at Sky with GC aspirations and talent: Chris Froome, Sergio Henao, Richie Porte, Michael Rogers, and some guy named Wiggins. That’s not to mention the team’s effort to support super-sprinter Mark Cavendish and a Classics campaign around Juan Flecha and Geraint Thomas. Sivtsov will undoubtedly be a key rider for the stage races, but the question is whether he’ll get any chances of his own.

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Lost in Traffic: Jakob Fuglsang

Age: 26. Team: RadioShack-Nissan-Trek. You have to feel for Fuglsang. He joined Saxo Bank full-time in 2009 and was a big hit in 2010 with a fourth at the Tour of Lombardy, a win at the Tour of Denmark, and third at the Tour of Switzerland. Then Saxo Bank broke up, with the Schlecks forming Leopard and Saxo hiring Alberto Contador. Fuglsang went with Leopard where, behind the Schlecks, he got plenty of chances. He made the most of them: another Denmark win, fourth at Amstel, fourth at Switzerland, and 11th at the Vuelta a España.

But then this past off-season Leopard and RadioShack merged to form another superteam. Fuglsang’s aspirations, like Matt Busche’s, may be blocked not only by the Schlecks but also by the influx of GC talent from RadioShack—Chris Horner, Andreas Kloden, and Tiago Machado, for three.

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